


The Lady of Song, the Daughter of Water

by pikkugen



Category: Kalevala - Elias Lönnrot
Genre: Domestic, F/F, Magic, Shapeshifting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-14
Updated: 2017-12-14
Packaged: 2019-02-14 17:51:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13013019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pikkugen/pseuds/pikkugen
Summary: Kyllikki and Aino meet and plot revenge to the men in their life.





	The Lady of Song, the Daughter of Water

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gileonnen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gileonnen/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide! This is a summer story, but I just couldn't place them in the cold of winter with their adventures...

Just before dawn Kyllikki stood at the gate, almost drowning in various feelings. How dare he? How dare he! First he told her she couldn't go to the village to socialise with the other women like she always had; then he up and went to war against all her warnings and forbiddings. What if he died? Kyllikki was still a young woman, barely in her twenties, and no child on the way to ensure the continuity of the family. So what if he died! There would always be more men. And women were the ones she could trust, always could. Maybe she was far away from home, the Isle where her family and friends would have happily taken her back, but she had made a few friends here on this windy, lonely cape jutting to the sea and backed by a forest, with only a narrow track winding down to the village near the shore. At the village she had many more of them. See if she would stay! She grabbed her scarf, wrapped it tightly against the ever-blowing wind, and collected some items into a basket. Then she closed the door and was away before his old mother and his siblings would notice. 

The path through the forest was rife with life, even in the grey of dawn. Birds sang in the bushes like they were about to burst. Dewy flowers were still drooping, nightblossoms had barely closed, and the trees were heavy with leaf. Somewhere a hare jumped through the underbush. A fox sneaked slyly after it across the path. All the folk of Tapio were about, guiding the night-beasts back to their nests and waking the day-beasts to their pastures. It was time for new beginnings, a new life. Kyllikki's steps were light, although her thoughts still twisted around her wilful husband. 

The last bend of the path went along the sea. The sun's light glittered far out in the offing, although it didn't yet reach here under the trees and large rocks of the shore. Kyllikki stayed and watched the gentle swell of the sea for a while, and only then realized there was someone watching her. 

On one of the smooth islets carved by the water there lay a shape. At first she thought it a seal, or maybe a large beached fish, or a rare porpoise that you could see sometimes rolling on the waves. But no, it was a woman, naked like the day she was born, her long pale hair wet and covering her strong swimmer's body like a cape of seaweed. Her sea-green eyes observed Kyllikki with curiosity. 

”If Näkki be thy name, I know thy shape, thou won't pull me in,” Kyllikki said quickly, just to be sure. Sometimes the malicious water-spirits tried to lure the unwary into the deep by taking seemingly harmless shapes. 

The water-woman sat up laughing and swept her hair aside. 

”I'm not old Näkki's wife, I cannot swing my breasts over my shoulders!” she said. ”I'm a human like you, although the sea-maids call me a sister. What are you doing out here all alone on this fine morning?”

Kyllikki sat on a rock on the beach. Her eyes watered for a moment, but she wiped the tears away with an angry gesture. 

”My fool of a husband went to war, because he claimed I had gone dancing with the maids in the village,” she said. ”I was just lonely for company. His old mother and grumpy siblings aren't much fun to talk to. I wanted to see people.”

”Men,” said the water-woman compassionately. She cast a look out to the sea and added, ”My mother sold me to an old man without asking me first. When he came to me in the forest and tried to grope me, I told him to... well. When my mother heard about it, she told me to put on my best clothes and go apologize to him. I rather turned to the sea.

So... do you wish for your husband to return, or...?” 

”Not really.” Kyllikki sighed. ”He is fun in bed, but lazy and boorish. When he captured me from home, it seemed like an exciting adventure, but my home was rich and prosperous and his is a lonely shack on a windy cape and no-one thinks much of him. I don't wish ill on him, but I don't think he'd miss me if I disappeared.”

The water-woman nodded. 

”I can see you're not one who would enjoy life in the sea. I know a little house on the other side of the bay, it's deserted but in a good shape. Would you like to move in there?” 

Kyllikki smiled. ”Only if you move in with me, sea-lady. What is your name, if not Näkki?” 

”Aino am I, and originally I came from the village on the other side of the bay. My family ties aren't important. You?” 

”Kyllikki. I came from the Isle on the other shore of the sea. It seems we both have crossed some waters to a new life. How do I get to this house of yours?” 

”It would take you too long to walk around the bay, so if you'd like, I could carry you through the waters. Put your clothes into your basket and wade in, I'll catch you.” 

Aino slided down to the water and waded near the shore while Kyllikki packed her dress into the basket. She shivered as she waded into the morning-cold water, and her feet slipped on the rugged rocks under the surface, but Aino was there, as steady as a boat on the waves, and caught her before she even gasped. Together the young women waded deeper, and then Aino said: 

”Hold on to your basket tightly, and put your other arm on my shoulders.” 

She dipped lightly into water, and suddenly Kyllikki found that she was holding a swan by the neck. The swan made a joyful trumpeting noise and started to swim lightly over the bay. 

The day was going to be bright. The red cliffs on the opposite shore shone warmly under the morning sun, their soft water-carved forms crowned with blossoming chives and sea-cabbage. Seagulls spiralled over the bay, sometimes diving after fish and screeching at each other. Salty water sprayed over Kyllikki as she stared at her new world. When Lemminkäinen had stolen her from the Isle, it had been winter and his sleigh had flown over ice and packed snow. Now it was high summer; everything was clear and bright and colourful. 

All too soon they approached the other shore behind the red cliffs. There was a tiny half-moon shaped cove, its shoreline of brown sand obscured by high reeds, and brown algae formed a barrier on the high-water mark. Almost covered by the tall pine forest was a small cottage, with its windows shuttered and its roof saggy but still intact. Kyllikki waded up to the shore, pulled on an undershirt from her basket and went to the house. 

Aino rose lightly behind her and followed her in. The door was leaning on its hinges, but there seemed to be no wild things inside. The place smelled old and deserted, and there was nothing of value in the only room the cottage had, but the floor and the walls were sturdy and the sagging roof could be fixed. Kyllikki nodded, put her basket on the floor, and took some bread and salt from there. She danced lightly through the small room, sprinkling the salt and breadcrumbs over the floor and singing quietly to the spirits of the house and the place. When she came to the sagging part of the roof, she pushed her hands up – and the roof straightened itself. When she found a broken floorplank, she lifted her arms, and the plank fixed itself. Cracks in the walls sucked themselves closed. The door straightened itself with the rotten planks renewed. The crumbled hearth moved back together and the chimney declogged itself with a rumble and a puff. When she was finished, the house looked brand new from the inside, but Aino, standing on the doorstep, could see that the outside looked as forlorn and desolate as before. 

”It seems I'm not the only one to know some secret arts,” she said, stepping inside with wet toes. Kyllikki turned and smiled at her. ”There was a reason why my family was held in great esteem back on the Isle,” she answered. ”I cannot make things from nothing, but I can shape many things and fix anything that still remembers its shape.” 

Aino nodded and sat elegantly on the bare floor. ”My family was always close to all living things,” she told her. ”Fish, birds and beasts alike. I can take the shape of any living thing I've touched, although I prefer birds. I love flying.” She shivered a little, and Kyllikki hurried to light a fire in the hearth and pulled a blanket from her basket. 

”Tomorrow we'll make some furniture. Today I'll go and look for something to eat,” she decided and covered Aino with the blanket. Aino pushed it aside. ”If we're going to make dinner, I'm going hunting,” she said. ”Fish, fowl or meat?” She pushed the door open, and out leaped a beautiful tawny hunting-dog with a curly tail and pointed ears. It barked once and disappeared into the forest. 

Kyllikki laughed to herself and emptied her basket on the floor. She then pulled on her dress and braided her brown hair tightly under a scarf. She went briskly out with the basket under her arm, first to the shore to pick some salty herbs for the meat Aino would be bringing, then to the overgrown garden and field to dance and sing some more in order to collect some turnips and some ears of barley. She had no millstones, but she found a flat stone in the woods and a round stone in the beach, and proceeded to grind some of the barley into flour. She found a thoroughly rusted pot out in the heap of scraps, which took a good deal of singing and dancing to fix, but soon enough she had a merry bubbling pot of chopped turnips and barley grains and she was kneading dough for flatbread. 

A bark sounded from outside, and soon Aino came in shaking her hair like a mane and dropped a couple of skinned and gutted squirrels on the bare end of a plank that served as Kyllikki's table. Kyllikki nodded at her knife and started to fashion flatbreads on the hot hearthstones. 

Together the two women prepared the stew, waited for the meat to boil, and exchanged their tales in detail. Kyllikki spoke with longing of her youth on the Isle, the dances, games and songs she had learned there. Aino told how she had suddenly found her talent of shape-shifting, being a kinswoman of mighty Louhi, the Mistress of the North. 

”Nobody expected me to have it, since Mother was just a distant cousin to Louhi and none of our close family has it,” she said, sucking thoughtfully on a squirrel-bone. ”My fool of a brother thinks he is some great shaman, having some gift of song, but he is but a dabbler. He lost a singing contest to the mighty Väinämöinen and had to promise me to the old man to survive it. But Mother was raised as a ward with Louhi's own daughters, and when she left to marry they gave her some of their own clothes and pieces of jewellery. I suppose they gave her something else, too.” 

She dropped the slender bone to the edge of her wooden plate, but Kyllikki took it and started to sing softly to it. Soon she was holding a sharp bone needle that she tucked carefully into the folds of her apron. Aino smiled. 

”Waste not, want not? What are you going to sew with that?” 

”We are going to need some furniture tomorrow. Can you turn into a beaver?” 

”A beaver? Sure. But won't the wood need to dry? ...Oh, you're going to dance to it again, aren't you?”

Kyllikki smiled. ”Something like that.” 

They cleaned their dishes, covered the rest of the stew for breakfast and traded some more stories about their past. The light summer night was falling, and Kyllikki gathered a pile of heather, placed it in a corner and started a slow chant. The heather made a crackling sound and withered under their eyes. Kyllikki pressed at the pile a few times, nodded, put a blanket over it and threw herself on it. She patted the makeshift mattress beside her, looking at Aino. 

”It'll be warmer if we sleep in the same bed,” she said. ”The nights can still be chilly.” 

Aino shrugged and settled next to the other girl, threw an arm over her and let her cover them with another blanket. Some shuffling made both find a comfortable position pressed against each other, and then Aino fell asleep with her face against Kyllikki's neck and one of her legs between hers. Kyllikki stayed awake a little longer, feeling Aino's back muscles stretch under her hand as she breathed, and listening the sounds of the night in the old house. 

In the morning they woke at dawn to a chorus of birds singing in the trees, and even Aino was happy to pull on some clothes in the cool air. The fire had died during the night, and Kyllikki set to lighting it anew. They warmed the rest of the stew and ate it for breakfast, and then they prepared for a day out getting new timber for their cottage. 

Aino shed her shift and stood at the door. ”Where to?” she asked. ”I think I saw some young birches that way yesterday.” 

”Birch would do nicely,” said Kyllikki, took her basket and secured her knife under her belt. To Aino's questioning look she answered, ”We're going to have to eat today, too, and you never know what you'll encounter in the woods. Maybe the spirits are favourable to us today.” 

Aino nodded, took a short sprint, and turned into a sturdy chestnut horse. She turned her head towards Kyllikki, huffed softly, and Kyllikki laughed and stepped on a rock to get on her back. Together they set out into the fresh morning forest. 

The pines rose high just behind the shoreline and its lower leafy trees, and the heathers grew thick underfoot. Wood-nymphs peeked at them from behind the juniper bushes and giggled, turning their bark-like backs at them as soon as they were noticed. A cuckoo called loudly at the distance, and soon another started further away. A slight wind fanned Aino's thick flaxen mane. 

Suddenly a large elk stepped through the forest, her twin calves following her closely and looking only little agitated at seeing the strange couple in their lands. Aino stopped to let them pass peacefully, and Kyllikki noted a wreath of twin-flowers on her neck and bowed respectfully at the favourite of Mielikki, the Mistress of the Forest. 

When the elks had passed they continued through the woods. As the terrain dipped into a dell, the pines gave way to large firs, and under them there grew a thick carpet of moss and bilberry twigs. Kyllikki noted the place: bilberries would be large and sweet there in a month or so, whereas the ones growing under the pines would be small and tasty. 

After the dell they came to a part of the forest that had clearly been used as a pasture some time ago. Some of the white birches were old and bore graze marks, most were young and straight, and the undergrowth was lush and green. Kyllikki slid down from the horse's back and started to pick the tiny wild strawberries that speckled the ground everywhere. When Aino came next to her, back in her human form and shaking her pale hair, she offered her a handful. 

”I thought we were here because of the birches?” said Aino between the berries. 

”That too, but look at these berries! I'm going to pick as many as I can, and dry some of them for winter. But what we need is a good bunch of straight long birch poles, about the thickness of my wrist, as many as you think you can pull back home. We'll have to trade for an axe and some other tools, but for now we need both firewood and something to make things with. Oh, and I'll want some of the leafy branches, too. Oh look, stone brambles!”

Aino smiled and shook her head, sat down and clicked her teeth, and turned into a beaver that busily waddled to the nearest slim birch and set to gnawing it. She made a point to try to fell the birches away from Kyllikki, who obliviously wandered around the place gathering herbs, her lips bright red from eating sweet strawberries and having eyes only for the rare plants she was seeing all around. 

By afternoon they had a respectable pile of young birches and a basketful of berries and herbs, and Aino had turned back into a woman and lay in the shade, cooling herself with a leafy birch branch. The sun warmed the glade and insects teemed, both the beautiful and the blood-sucking ones. 

They ate the rest of the flatbread from yesterday, drank some water from a spring on the other side of the pasture, and then Aino turned into a horse again and Kyllikki arranged and sang the longest of the branchless poles into a travois, tying the rest into a manageable load with some of the more malleable young branches. She put her full basket on her arm and helped Aino pull the travois through the trees. 

They were home late, having had some trouble with the load and the terrain, but they made it. Aino turned back and decided to take a swim to rinse the sweat from her body, discovered that the reeds harboured some young pikes, turned into an otter and caught some, and proceeded to cook them as Kyllikki was busy drying the wood they had brought. She stashed some of the poles under the cottage for further use, came to eat her share of the pikes and to season them with some of the herbs she had picked, and then began an intricate dance and song to craft some necessary things out of the wood. 

First she picked four sturdy short poles, placed them up in a corner with four others circling them, and danced and sang until the poles formed themselves into a four-poster bed. She added some long branches and sang them between the frame into a lattice for the mattress, and then she sighed and gathered the last night's heather bedding on it. She sat down and drank water, ate a few strawberries – ”Singing is hard work, you know” – and continued to sing more poles into a vertical loom. She started on a table before Aino rose and closed her mouth by putting a strawberry between her lips. 

”Enough for today, craftswoman,” she said. ”I thought I had a hard workday pulling those poles back, but it seems you're doing at least as much here. You can continue tomorrow.” 

Kyllikki smiled and agreed. She spread the blankets on the new bed, threw herself on it and laughed at the springiness of the mattress. Aino grinned at her, crawled in next to her, and found she had fallen asleep almost as soon as she had finished laughing. Singing was indeed hard work, Aino thought, put her arm over her and fell promptly asleep herself. 

The next few days saw them busily building their own little world. The cottage now had several pieces of furniture and dishes that made life more comfortable, and Kyllikki busied herself by making more that could be traded for items she couldn't make or had no raw materials for. Aino had taken to providing food, both for the day and for the oncoming winter; there was a drying rack full of fish and a smoking hut for meat. But she also sometimes hunted for news. She flew occasionally to the village as a little bird and sat by the well or listened at open windows for any news. 

One day she flew home, turned back to woman and preened her arms before striding to Kyllikki singing at a basket and said, ”Do you want to know what your no-good husband is doing?” 

Kyllikki finished her basket and looked up. ”I can see you want to tell me.” 

”He's going off to the North to ask one of Louhi's daughters for a wife! As if he didn't just forsake you! Don't you want to give him a reminder?” 

Kyllikki shrugged. ”What can I do, even if I wanted to? It's a long way to Louhi's abode, both for me and for him.”

Aino laughed and shook herself. ”I can carry you anywhere. I even managed to touch a sea-eagle yesterday, so now I can carry you through the air and we can probably outrun him. Shall we?” 

Kyllikki sat for a while, trying to remember something good of her husband. The excitement had worn out quickly by the dullness of his home and his kin. He couldn't really do much but boast. Even his skills in bed had been negotiable, at best. He didn't consider his wife's enjoyment much, only his own. He was good-looking, in a proud, boorish way, but that would change in time. He drank too much and was lazy. No, she didn't think much of him. It would be nice to be able to pay him back a bit.

”All right, let's do it. What do I need?” 

”Take some food, and whatever else you think you need. We must travel light, but we can get help from my mother's kin when we reach Louhi's abode. We shouldn't be travelling for much more than two days at most.” 

Kyllikki nodded, packed a small bundle, and banked the fire and secured the cottage from random travellers by dancing around it a few times, and then she took a hard breath and stood next to Aino. 

”What should I do?” she asked, tension clear in her voice. 

”Just hold tight to my neck, I won't let you fall,” Aino answered, shook out her wings and caught Kyllikki easily on her shoulders before soaring up to the thin air. 

At first Kyllikki closed her eyes tightly and buried her hands into the soft sleek plumage, but when Aino-as-eagle made a small screech and shook her head, she released her pinching grip a bit and tried to relax. When she managed to open her eyes to the brisk wind of her flying, she saw that they were already far inland, above the forest dotted here and there with small farmsteads and tiny fields, cut by several rivers and later on by lakes that in turn harboured more villages on their shores. 

As they flew northwards, the forests grew older and taller and the farms and villages rarer, until they dwindled altogether into mossy swampland and scrubby hills with stunted birch trees growing on them. The wind was steady from the southwest, carrying them under grey clouds and a hint of rain, but the air was fresh and not too cold despite it. They saw many beasts under the canopy of the trees, elks, deer, even a lonely bear with her cubs frolicking on the mossy bed underneath. Birds flew out of the trees in occasional bursts, afraid of Aino's shadow falling on their nests. A crane rose from a swamp pond, trumpeting her challenge. Hares leaped into bushes. Only the farmers and the hunters and the shepherds never seemed to notice them. 

They set down late in the evening on top of a craggy rock formation rising from the stunted birch forest underneath. The fresh scent of birch greeted them, almost too sweet to breathe in. The lichen on the stones made a soft bed, and the wind protected them from the blood-sucking mosquitoes and gnats they could see dancing in the last sunbeams over a pond below. They ate a bite, curled under a blanket and into each other for warmth, and fell asleep. Tomorrow would hasten them to the North proper, to the realm of Louhi. 

In the morning it began raining, a thin, misty drizzle from the high clouds. They woke up shivering and started the second day of their journey as soon as possible, stopping only when they were hungry. Aino caught a huge salmon from a river and they ate it raw, picking the pink meat from the slender bones and strewing the glittering scales around the river's edge like flower petals. Kyllikki took some of the larger bones and the skull of the salmon, washed them in the river and wrapped them into a piece of cloth. Aino watched her work, but asked nothing.

Some hours before nightfall the sun broke out from under the clouds, a large, pale copper circle to their left. It coloured the clouds and spread a warm glow over the sparse forest and the glittering river they were following, and in its light Kyllikki noticed a tiny boat in the water. The red sail was raised to catch the strong southwesterly wind, but the man at the tiller made her gasp. She pointed him out to Aino-as-eagle. 

The eagle turned a yellow eye at her and the boat, gave a short cry and beat her wings a little faster. They weren't far from their goal; the smokes of a large village could be seen in the horizon. But Lemminkäinen was close behind. He would arrive at nightfall, they a little earlier, if they were lucky.

Aino closed her wings and settled on a low vertical pole set as a perch, and as Kyllikki slid down from her back she saw it had seen many an eagle's talons on it. People were running across the yard at them, a black dog was barking furiously, and Aino turned back, shaking her arms, and allowed Kyllikki to cover her with a blanket. 

”Hail, Louhi's people! Where is your mistress? Her kinswoman brings her news!” she said boldly to the staring, gaping servants crowding around them.

”Louhi is in the house,” said a servant, pointing at the mighty longhouse on the east side of the yard. ”Just go in, noble kinswoman.”

As they approached the door, a tall woman stepped on the threshold to see what the commotion was about. She was dressed as befit the mistress of a large house, in a dark blue dress and a shining white shift under it, with a soft grey apron and a scarf on her greying head. She wore heavy brooches on her chest and a long gold-thread belt at her ample waist. Everything about her implied a sovereign of her own realm, and Kyllikki bowed low before her. But Aino greeted her with her pale head held high. 

”Hail, O Louhi, and greetings from your ward Ainikki, my mother,” she said, and the stern woman's face softened into a smile. 

”Come in, daughter to my daughter, and heir to my shape-shifting skills, it seems,” she answered and reached out her hands. ”What brings me the joy of seeing you in my house?” 

”This is my friend and partner Kyllikki of the Isle,” said Aino, taking Kyllikki's hand and pulling her towards Louhi. ”We would ask you a favor.” 

Louhi nodded and waved them in. The house was abuzz with women working, weaving, sewing, embroidering skillfully with gold and silver threads and several old ones spinning thread. One of the old women was spinning a tale as well, and the younger ones listened and laughed or gasped. 

Louhi led them to a smaller chamber behind the main hall. A servant brought beer, bread and salt, as was customary, and they sat and ate before anything else was said. Kyllikki kept a worried eye on a small window high on the eaves, measuring the waning light. 

”I can see your partner is worried. You had better tell me your story, then.” 

Aino nodded. ”My friend is the cause of our journey. Her husband has forsaken her and is now coming to ask for one of your own daughters to wed. We humbly bid that you don't give him one, because he already has a wife.” 

”I see. And do you want to win him back, Kyllikki of the Isle?” 

Kyllikki started and looked at Louhi, her thoughts had clearly been somewhere else. ”No, Mistress,” she said. ”He has forsaken me, and I have found a new and better life. But I'd like to see him reminded of what he's done.” 

Louhi nodded. ”And apparently he is to be expected soon?”

A commotion from outside needed no confirmation. Someone was asking loudly for the Mistress, and servants were rushing out to hold him.

”Ah. I see. Would you like to come and see how I send him away? – Clothes for my kinswoman. And my second-best headpiece for her partner. – You look surprised, Kyllikki, my dear? He will not look for the married women, and not for you among them. You do want to hear this, don't you? And Aino, you too? Good. Come now, sit among my women.” 

She straightened her shoulders and swept to the main hall, followed by the two young women, still confused but curious. 

Lemminkäinen stood by the door as if he was the master of the hall, but shrank visibly as Mistress Louhi stepped forward and stared him down with a stern gaze. 

”And who would you be, disturbing my peace and the peace of my women?” she said coolly. 

”Son of Lempi am I, and I'm here to woo one of your sweet daughters, O mighty Louhi!” he answered with the honeyed tones Kyllikki remembered so well. She sat among the older women at the back of the hall, and Aino sat beside her. 

”Are you now? I don't give my daughters to any vagabond or good-for-nothing who deigns to approach my gates. Prove to me your worth. Bring me the elk of Hiisi, who has long ravaged my lands and spoiled my forests.” 

Aino and Kyllikki noticed the side-eye she cast on one of her men, who nodded and disappeared from the door. Lemminkäinen boasted of all the elk he had hunted before, and Louhi added that she particularly wanted the elk alive and well. It made Lemminkäinen's face droop a bit, but he soon collected himself and, after a lustful look at the gathered young maidens and a wink at them in general, he went. Louhi stood and watched until she was sure he had left. 

”Hirvo will give him a good chase, so we have bought ourselves some time,” she said. ”Now will you join me for an evening meal? You can tell me the whole story and we can plan for his eventual return.” 

She listened to both of their stories while eating, nodded thoughtfully and offered them hospitality until they had chastened Kyllikki's ungrateful husband. Louhi's thoughts ran fast and clear, and she seemed to have a plan devised by the end of the meal.

”I think I have it now, but I will tell you more tomorrow. And I might have something against old Väinämöinen himself, too, if you think you'd want to requite him for what he did to you, Aino,” she said. ”We're old competitors and rivals, him and me; the future will show which one of us will be considered the greater.” Her countenance was placid, as if she were certain of her own victory but deemed it too insignificant a thing to mention. 

The young women thanked her, and then they were shown a storehouse where they could sleep and stay at their own leisure. It had many coffers and chests filled with the wealth of Louhi: wonderful clothes and tapestries made by her and her women. Louhi had always favoured the craft of women, whether it was for weaving, storytelling or raising children, and she still took in every girl that was sent to her as a ward. Drying herbs hung from the rafters, and the air was sweet and fresh. The large guest bed had fresh linens and light blankets, and the young women fell asleep listening to the singing of the night birds.

The next day they planned their revenge, both towards Lemminkäinen and Väinämöinen. Louhi offered them advice but was comfortable suggesting things, then leaning back and watching how the young ones ran away with her ideas. 

After a couple of days a very much humbled Lemminkäinen came back and said he had caught the elk, but it had escaped. As proof he showed a handful of coarse black hair. Louhi looked at it disdainfully and huffed, but gave him one more task. 

”Bring me the Swan of Death from the pools of Tuoni River, killed by a single arrow, and then you maybe get a chance with my daughters,” she said, and as the man went pale, she taunted him, ”What, do you not trust your aim? Or are you afraid to shoot a holy bird? Here, have a servant of mine to aid you, a herder of my cows, Wetcap – he knows all the secrets of the swan and the river.” 

Lemminkäinen didn't seem too happy to have a cowherd join him for the journey, but he seemed to understand that the man might be his only chance at the bird. 

”And why are you called Wetcap?” he asked the man, as they prepared to leave for the river. 

”B-because I know the river so well,” the man answered, his voice thin and reedy and stammering. His head was covered by a large brimmed hat that flopped over one eye and he was short and stocky with scrawny hands and arms. Lemminkäinen made him carry most of his things and pretended he didn't see the glowering looks he kept sending at him. 

The way to the river and its pools was easy but long, and they arrived late in the evening. The day was long here in the North, the sun barely set, but the long twilit hours of dusk and dawn played tricks on an archer's eye. The black pools of the river in the lowlands before it disappeared underground lay silent and ominous before them, and on the farthest one there glided like a ghost a white swan. 

Lemminkäinen took his bow, struggled to pull the string in place, and carefully picked an arrow from his quiver. 

”You might want to know something about that swan,” said Wetcap quietly behind him. 

”Hush! I'm trying to aim,” said Lemminkäinen, swearing at the sun that reflected red from the surface of the pool. 

”She is an enchanted one,” continued the cowherd without stammering and in an oddly soft voice. ”Sometimes she swims as a pike, sometimes she runs as an elk, sometimes she flies as an eagle. And sometimes, she is the fairest maiden you could imagine, with a rare gift of friendship and love bestowed on someone you forsook. And you're still as blind as before, to not see what is in front of you and running to grasp at things you can never reach instead of cherishing those you did have.” 

Lemminkäinen slowly put down his bow and turned, and saw that the cowherd was in fact Kyllikki, his wife, in a man's clothing and with a strange look on her face. She opened her mouth and sang, a strange, low note, and the bow in his hands fell and broke into pieces. The swan on the pool cried out and flew towards them, circled from behind Kyllikki and hit him squarely to the chest with all its considerable weight, pushing him down to the pool with a splash. He fell like a log. The black water closed over his face and the water-plants under it tangled into his limbs. 

”Well, I think that was it,” said Aino, back in her woman-shape and shaking her wet hands. 

”Should we pull him up?” asked Kyllikki.

Aino pretended to think for a moment. ”If he can't crawl up from a pond of muck, he deserves to drown. Let's go back. We still have Väinämöinen to take care of. 

”...I liked what you said about me,” she added, as Kyllikki put a blanket over her shoulders. Kyllikki kissed her gently on the cheek and hugged her.

”I meant every word,” she said, and Aino blushed a bit. 

”Are we really going to walk the whole way?” Aino asked, sprinted and turned into the chestnut horse Kyllikki had seen before. She laughed, climbed on her back, and they galloped back to Louhi's house.

There they were met by Louhi herself, who was standing in the yard with her arms folded and a stern look on her face. 

”There you are at last,” she said. ”I have heard that Väinämöinen is coming here soon. You might get your revenge sooner than anticipated, my girl.”

”What is he here for?” asked Aino in a harsh, aggressive voice. 

Louhi shrugged. ”I would suppose he's here for one of my daughters; most men are. They would be wiser to come for my counsel, but they never do, and I only give my daughters away if they themselves wish so. So. What would you like to do?” 

”Mistress Louhi, you are wiser than we are, and your last suggestion was a success,” said Kyllikki gently. ”Would you advice us in this too, please?” 

Louhi smiled. ”Aren't you the polite one,” she murmured fondly. ”Why won't we do the same as we did the last time, and improvise after we hear what he wants?”

After only a couple of days Väinämöinen, old and steadfast, arrived to Louhi's house. His manner of arrival was slightly less than dignified, since his horse had been shot from under him and (as he told it) an eagle had carried him to the shore. A girl of Louhi's household had rowed him to the house, and now he was being pampered with all the hospitality of Louhi's abode. He was very coy as to the reason for his journey, saying only that he longed to be back home and would be grateful of help. Perhaps someone of her household could accompany him?

 

Louhi smiled and said that all her men and horses were out harvesting grain, but maybe he could just wait and in time someone would be able to take him. In the meanwhile, there was certainly something he could do to help pass the time. Wasn't he the famous singer, with skills unsurpassed and a peerless memory for old songs and spells? Would he pay for his stay with a song or two? 

Väinämöinen demurred and complained that his voice was rusty from floating in the sea and he had no instrument to accompany him and that his head was spinning from the kindness and opulence of Mistress Louhi, but he sat straighter on the bench, opened his mouth and started to sing... 

His speaking voice was that of an old man, but his singing voice was deep and melodious. There were cracks of age, but he was able to gloss them over with his skill. Even though he had no instrument, his voice and expression were enough to fill the whole hall with enchanting sound and imagery that made the people believe they were really seeing what he sang of.

At the other end of the hall there sat a young woman holding a fish skull. She placed the lower jaw with its jutting teeth in front of her, together with some teeth and bones and five long golden strands of hair that the woman next to her gave her. The top of the skull was placed over the jawbone, and the woman drew a breath and sang a few words in counterpoint to the mighty old man at the opposite end of the hall. The skull bone flattened and joined to the jawbone, leaving the teeth on the edges. The smaller teeth and a big bone were coaxed to join the other end of the skull and jawbone, and finally the strands of hair wound themselves over the teeth, stretching over the skullbone like precise rays of golden light over a nacreous plate. The woman placed her hands over the contraption and plucked the first chord, and all sound around her died. 

Väinämöinen stared. The brown-haired woman played a soft melody in minor key, like a simple lullaby to a child, and then, with a deft turn of her hand, she adjusted the tuning and a victorious melody rolled in major key from the golden strings. She opened her mouth and sang. 

She sang of heroes, of women who toiled for their families, unsung, unpraised, unnoticed, and she sang of those who toiled for money or for freedom in strange households, and of those who submitted themselves to the pain and terror and hope of childbirth, of those who succumbed to the labour and those who emerged victorious with mewling babies on their breasts, thus raising the status of their family and ensuring its continuity. She sang of endless toil to keep one's family fed and clothed, all of which was women's work. She sang of cleaning and washing, the never-ending, thankless, beautyless task. She sang of organizing and planning the household work, much of which was again invisible and thus unpraised, and she sang of work not many thought of as work, keeping the family in good mood and supporting people in need, in grief or in hard times, never showing one's own tiredness, anger and pain. 

She sang of how in spite of all this work, women sang, laughed, made themselves beautiful and cared deeply for each other. She sang of friendship, of sisterhood, of love between mother and daughter, and all the women in the hall wept and laughed with her. 

And Väinämöinen sat alone, silent, mouth hanging open in the gloom on the other side of the hall, forgotten and surprised. 

When Kyllikki finally ended her song, she searched for Louhi's eyes. The old woman sat close to her, tears flowing freely from her eyes like two streams of water in springtime, but she was smiling. She rose and hugged the younger woman, thanked her quietly and turned again to her people. 

”Behold, a singer to remind us of who we are! A song to remember, so none of this goes unpraised ever again! A true lady of the kantele is she.” 

Väinämöinen rose silently and went away from the house into the night. In the yard he met a woman, pale of hair and fiery of eye, that he recognized as Aino, his bride-to-be, who he thought had drowned rather than married him.

”See, old man?” she said with a proud look. ”That is my beloved, Kyllikki of the Isle, a better singer than you and a mightier shaman.”

”Indeed she is,” said Väinämöinen humbly. ”I can see I was wrong to think I could ever compete with one of such beauty and talent. She has opened my eyes to seeing the woman's side of the world. May you change the world together, and may you be happy, too!”


End file.
